The present invention concerns a prechamber system for an internal combustion engine and an internal combustion engine, in particular a gas Otto-cycle engine, having such a prechamber system.
Internal combustion engines from a given structural size involve the use of gas-scavenged prechamber systems, the purpose of which is to cause ignition in a combustion chamber of the internal combustion engine in such a way that ideal combustion is achieved. In that case a given amount of gas is fed to the prechamber during the induction stroke of the internal combustion engine by way of a gas introduction device.
At the same time an overstoichiometric gas-air mixture is fed to the combustion chamber. During the compression stroke the overstoichiometric mixture flows into the prechamber by way of a communicating transfer opening (riser passage) and there mixes with the pure gas to give an approximately stoichiometric mixture (λ=1).
After mixing of the gas-air mixture with pure gas, however, local regions still remain in which the pure gas has mixed only very slightly with the overstoichiometric gas-air mixture. The partially homogenized mixture is ignited by way of a spark plug. By virtue of an increase in pressure the burnt hot gas flows by way of the communicating transfer opening (riser passage) into the combustion chamber of the internal combustion engine and causes ignition therein.
A disadvantage with such systems is, on the one hand, a tendency for soot to be produced in the so-called dead volumes, that is to say those volumes in which mixing occurs only inadequately, and on the other hand, a severe thermal loading on the electrodes of the spark plug by virtue of hot combustion gases.
Prechamber systems with guide devices are known from the state of the art and serve differing purposes (see for example U.S. Pat. No. 4,467,759 or U.S. Pat. No. 4,095,565).